“Sometimes I meet Buddhists who seem to consider it a waste of time, despite the teachings, to look at the way their own selves are constructed, or study their personal psychological make-up,” writes Claudia Wellnitz, a student of Lama Yeshe and Lama Zopa Rinpoche since 1980, and who has studied Buddhist psychology, philosophy and Buddhist-based psychotherapy. “Personally I find that borrowing from some Western psychological models can help us to understand more thoroughly what our meditations should be directed at.”

“Many years of exposure to the Dharma or mere scholarship alone don’t guarantee that people will become more balanced and happy, or that their behavior towards others will improve. Sometimes it seems as if the very thing that was made to liberate beings is being used as an instrument to have power over others or harden people’s neurotic ego-structures. People – and I include myself – who have the best of intentions, who so much long to be like saints, fall prey again and again to power trips, fits of jealousy or anger, and create disasters in personal relationships. Often consciously declared intentions, and the things people do, seem to be many hundreds of miles apart. And merely remembering the rules of Buddhist ethics alone doesn’t help: The energies dominating the person are too strong.”